Horizon Lego Adventures could well be the final nail in the PS4’s coffin

The long tail on the PlayStation 4 has been incredible. The console is still has 49 million active users according to Sony’s most recent estimates. But all good things must come to an end, and it seems clearer than ever that Sony is ready to leave the PS5’s predecessor in the past, with Lego Horizon Adventures being the final nail in the coffin.

This growing feeling of a good trip is not entirely new. Sony’s last big cross-gen exclusive was God of War Ragnarok at the end of 2022. The following year Spider-Man 2 launched without a PS4 version. Burning Shores2023 extension for cross-gen Forbidden Horizon Westwas also a “next-gen” exclusive. “The PlayStation 4 generation is well and truly over!” a viral tweet from last summer’s reading. “Crossgen is finished!”

Despite hints of development would be phased out by 2025Sony has never officially confirmed that it is done making games for the PS4. Its last word on the subject came from recently appointed PlayStation co-CEO Hermen Hulst in 2022. “We certainly don’t want to forget the millions of active players on PS4, and we want to make sure that there are great games for them as well,” the PlayStation Studios head said at the time. said Axios “We are assessing the situation on a case-by-case basis.”

There were reasons to think that one or two first-party projects might still manage to make it to older hardware. In addition to being on Nintendo Switch due to licensing requirements, MLB The Show 24 also came to PS4 and Xbox One. Then Sony revealed Lego Horizon Adventures at Summer Game Fest, a kid-friendly co-op game that appears to aim to broaden the appeal of the sci-fi series.

To that end, it will be available on Switch alongside the PS5 when it launches later this year, but oddly not on PS4. This feels like an intentional business decision rather than a technical necessity. The older system can clearly handle the benchmarks set by Nintendo’s aging handheld hybrid, and is undoubtedly active in millions of homes with kids who still haven’t upgraded to the PS5, and may still not after this year’s release. Call of Duty, MaddenAnd EA FC Sports (formerly known as FIFA) will all be available on the latest generation machines.

But 2024 has been full of PlayStation console exclusives, and almost all of them have skipped the PS4. Earlier this year, these included Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Helldivers 2, Star BladeAnd The Rise of the Roninthe last three being published by Sony. Granblue Fantasy: Reconnection was the only exception, probably because its development was initially announced in 2016.

More recently, Sony revealed its upcoming live-action shooter Hero Concorde will also be a PS5 console exclusive. It may have been technically impossible to offer the Overwatch 2 competitor to a weaker system, but it certainly would have been interesting to target it towards as wide a potential audience of PS Plus subscribers as possible. Astro Robot Skipping the PS4 doesn’t seem like an obvious conclusion either given the project’s closer-to-Nintendo scope, though it’s easier to understand once you see how integrated the PS5 DualSense is. in the fabric of what makes the game fun and compelling.

While it’s unfortunate for PS4 owners, it wouldn’t be surprising if Sony quietly decided to turn the page on one of the best console generations of all time. In fact, it’s more shocking that the cross-gen party has lasted this long. We’re already in the second half of the PS5’s lifecycle, and platforms have traditionally abandoned development of older console generations much earlier in an effort to entice more people to upgrade sooner. Covid has clearly disrupted the “normal” transition periods for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. And perhaps the explosion of first-party console budgets has, too. God of War Ragnarok would not have set a sales record if it had been only new equipment.

It’s unclear whether Horizon Lego Adventures and Astro Bot are evidence that Sony is going to start rebuilding the smaller, cheaper part of its first-party portfolio. If so, there may still be hope for one last first-party game on PS4. I somewhat doubt it.

Sony did not respond to a request for comment.